Vulpine

In that house there was an old dictionary. Its cover was brown, though faded, and both name and edition had been worn off by many hands many years ago, back when James' mother had used it almost daily for Scrabble games. Since she had passed away, it had not been touched, doing nothing more than sitting sedentarily in its usual place on the bookshelf, collecting impressive amounts of dust.

Now, however, it lay open on the grass of the front lawn, before the hunched forms of Katie and Lynne, as they ran their fingers up and down a page in the "G" section, squinting against the sun's glare on the yellowed pages. Uncle James had immediately dashed outside, face as pale as cream, shouting and waving his arms. Kate and Lynne had followed right after, but Lynne snagged the dictionary off its shelf as she skittered down the hall and out of the door. The three of them had tried to coax Josua down from the air above where he soared along effortlessly, giggling and whooping, but to no avail. After a minute's fruitless labors, Lynne had plunked herself down on the ground and opened the dictionary. It was time they got to the bottom of this.

Grandiosity ---- there!

Affectedly grand or important; pompous; high-flown.

High-flown! Josua is literally high-flown right now!

And remember what Uncle James said about being psychologically 'up.'

Or able to do anything. . . .

Both girls looked simultaneously over at the grimoire.

That book is dangerous!

Its pages rustled slightly, though there was no breeze. A shadow passed over it. The twins both gasped. Another word had scrawled its way across a page in thick, inky letters. Vulpine.

What does that mean?

I don't know, let's look it up.

The dictionary's old pages crinkled as young fingers flipped roughly to the "V"s. Of or resembling a fox, it read. Clever or cunning.

Kate felt a tickling, prickling sensation on her face. She reached up to scratch her nose and shrieked. Lynne's head swiveled upward at the noise and she saw with a start of horror, that her sisters once smooth, light face was covered with short, auburn hairs, and her ordinarily tiny nose had lengthened to a long snout tipped with a coal-black nose.

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